Spider-Man 4 delayed, possibly impacting Warcraft movie

The latest buzz out of Hollywood is that the fourth installment of the Spider-Man movie franchise has hit a snag. Director Sam Raimi is apparently in the midst of some major creative differences with Sony Pictures executives over the script and the villain lineup. A little bit of drama in Hollywood is nothing new, of course, but in this case its become bad enough to delay the movie, with the May 6th, 2011 release date now in serious doubt.

But what does this have to do with WoW, you ask? As you may recall, Raimi has also been tapped by Blizzard to direct the upcoming Warcraft movie. While the Warcraft movie is still in the very early stages of production, to the point where we have almost no idea of the details beyond the fact that Sam Raimi is the director, the fact remains that you need a director to make a decent movie.

So now that Sam Raimi is tied up with script disputes in Spider-Man 4, what happens with the Warcraft movie? As you might imagine, rumors and speculation abound. Gamespot believes that this will simply push the Warcraft movie back a few more months, as current scuttlebutt suggests the Spider-Man movie will be pushed back to Summer 2011. Blizzplanet's Medievaldragon is a bit more hopeful, suggesting that Raimi will perhaps decide to work on Warcraft instead while Spider-Man 4's script is rewritten to solve the dispute.

Part of the problem with speculating too much on all of this is that we still know so little about the Warcraft movie itself. All we can really say for sure is that Sam Raimi will direct it and Legendary Pictures will produce it. We've heard only the vaguest rumors of a script, and certainly there's been only very basic rumors on casting news. In this vein, I actually think that speaks better for Gamespot's theory than Medievaldragon's. If the other pieces are not in place, Sam Raimi won't have anything to direct, after all. For all we know, they haven't even slated actual shooting to begin yet. Besides, Sony's probably not going to let Spider-Man sink so easily. Raimi's probably going to be tied up for a while.

Still, regardless of all that, you know I'm all for Raimi dropping the Spider-Man movie and heading into the Warcraft movie. Don't get me wrong, Spider-Man was a boyhood hero and all, but I'm more of a Lantern man these days, and I'll give up either for some good old fashioned Humans vs. Orcs.

Regardless of what happens, stay tuned here. The minute all this Warcraft movie buzz consolidates into something solid, you'll hear about it on WoW.com.